Dominion Atlantic Railway Digital Preservation Initiative - Wiki
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Canning
Canning, Nova Scotia
Mile 10.7 Kingsport Subdivision
History
Once the site of an Acadian settlement called "Habitant", Canning was settled by New England Planters in 1760 and was furthered expanded by Loyalist settlers in the 1780s. Surrounded by rich farmland, the village grew around a sheltered river landing for schooners and was known as Apple Tree Landing until 1830 when it was named Canning after the Prime Minister of Britain, George Canning. The village prospered as a regional shipping point for valley farmers and as a shipbuilding centre. In the late 19th Century, the village faced economic challenges as shipping moved to larger ports and the Windsor & Annapolis Railway shifted economic development to towns along the railway such as Kentville and Wolfville. Business leaders in Canning responded in 1887 by pooling money to build the Cornwallis Valley Railway to develop a railway connection for Canning. The railway was completed in 1889 and proved a major success in developing the apple export industry. A number of apple warehouses and food processing businesses clustered around the railway in Canning. A spur was built to the Canning wharves in 1912 but shipping proved too infrequent to sustain its use, although the spur proved handy to park the private railway car of Sir Frederick Borden, a federal cabinet minster from Canning. Canning suffered several devastating fires that leveled much of its business district in 1866, 1868 and 1912, but was rebuilt each time. Railway service ceased in 1961. Several apple warehouses remain adapted for other purposes around the location of the former station.[1]
Facilities
Canning Station, Mile 10.7
17 car siding with three apple warehouses:
- Canning Fruit Company Warehouse/Kent Foods Apple Juice Plant
- Herbert Oyler Warehouse/Kent Foods Warehouse
- Maple Leaf Fruit Company/Kent Foods Warehouse
Spur, eastbound switch for:
- Maple Leaf Fruit Company Warehouse
- R.W. Graves Vinegar Factory
- Canning Bridge, small pile trestle bridge over stream north of Route 221, c. mile 10.4
- Sangster/R.W. DeWolfe Company Warehouse, Mile 9.9
- Canning Wye and Spur: 3300' spur to Canning wharf, active circa 1911-1920, mainly for Borden private railway car South leg: c. Mile 9.8, North leg: c. Mile 10.1
- Habitant River Bridge, Mile 9.2
Gallery
Locomotive No. 31 at Canning Station with the Oyler apple warehouse under construction, circa 1890.
Map of Canning Wye and Spur as designed April 28, 1911.
Canning Station, from the north, photographed by Harold Jenkins, July 1958.
Canning Station, from the west with the Maple Leaf Foods/Kent Foods warehouse on the left, July 1958.
Topographic map from Kentville to Hortons Landing circa 1956.
Oyler apple warehouse, now Canning fire hall, October 2007
Kent Food warehouse, Canning, October 2007
Site of the Canning Station with converted apple warehouse on left, April 20, 2008.
References and Footnotes
- Dominion Atlantic Railway Employee Time Table September 25, 1949, Library and Archives Canada, pmp -HE.2804 DC
- Canning Library and Heritage Centre Historical Calendar 2000
- DAR Chart of Apple Warehouses Feb. 12, 1927, Leon Barron Collection
- ↑ C. Bruce Fergusson, "Canning", Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Archives (1967), page 102.
